Before I apologize for not posting recently, hear this: March was the busiest month ever. The first weekend of the fine but busy month, my dad and godfather visited. Less than a week after they left, four days were spent in Morocco, and right after that I spent 5 days in Barcelona. Semana Santa (the week-long Easter celebration) followed almost immediately thereafter. It saw me soaking up the spectacle in Sevilla, scooting down to Cádiz for a beach hangout, and then jetting off to Amsterdam to catch the famous tulip festival. Basically, 5 awesome weeks, but 5 weeks in which I neglected this blog. Sorry.
My dad and godfather's visit was excellent. It felt great to be able to show them around the city-to be an expert, an old hat, a Sevillana. I also didn't realize how much I missed them until they showed up outside the Cathedral! We did a lot of touristy things--a tour of la Catedral and Real Alcázar and a visit to the Maestranza (the bullring)--and took a survey of the comida fina(classy food) of Sevilla, something that was as alien to me and my student budget as it was to them. We also went out to dinner with my host parents, Paco and Helena. I was really nervous about going out with all of them and being the translator, but it turned out just fine. Turns out reactions to delicious food do not require translation. The evening was also certainly lubricated by a few bottles of Rioja.
Paco (my host father), Helena (my host mother), Clifford (my godfather), my dad, and me at dinner.
We went to a wonderful restaurant in what Helena called Triana pura--
the most authentically Spanish part of Triana, the proudest barrio Sevillano!
My four days in Morocco, which where spent in Asilah, Rabat, and Chefchaouen, were amazing. Asilah is a beautiful seaside city: the buildings are all white with brilliant blue and turquoise accents, and every year new murals are painted on designated white-washed walls. Rabat was dingier, but with beautiful architectural interruptions: an ornate, magnificent mausoleum built in the 1960s (even though it looks like it is hundreds of years old), the remains of a mosque designed by the same guy who designed La Giralda, the bell tower of our Cathedral here in Sevilla, and Chellah, a site of ancient ruins. In Rabat we stayed with homestay families, which gave us access to wonderful homecooked meals. We also went to a Hammam -- a public bath--and did some great exfoliating. We spent very little time in Chefchaouen, which was touristy: mostly we just explored the markets there. Morocco was unlike anything I have experienced before. I had never been to an Arabic-speaking, Muslim, developing, or African country before. So going to an Arabic-speaking AND Muslim AND developing AND African country presented me with a lot of new things.
The 5 daily calls to prayer were certainly new for me. At first they took me by surprise, but I got used to them very quickly-I actually enjoyed being woken up by the sunrise prayer. It was beautiful and alarming because of how unfamiliar it was.
The poverty we saw in some places was disturbing: we drove by a Slumdog Millionaire-esque shantytown and my friend Sarah and I had tea in a home insulated with garbage. But at the same time we were presented with examples of relative wealth and abundance. For example, our meeting place (and the homestay of 3 of the boys on the trip) was a three-story house with high ceilings, beautiful tiles, and luxe furniture. Seeing such a dramatic juxtaposition was really interesting, especially after living in the Boston area my whole life (a very socio-economically segregated region).
The customs were also a surprise for me. It is rude for members of the opposite sex to publicly display any affection, which, given that our group likes to hug, required some adjustment on our part. Also, it is common to eat with your hands, using stiff bread as a sort-of-utensil (you load the cous cous or whatever delicious, well-seasoned thing you're eating onto the bread and eat it in one yummy bite). BUT the left hand is considered the "dirty hand" -- the one used for going to the bathroom -- so it is rude to use it while eating. That also took some getting used to.
The fantastic cous cous my friend Sarah and I were served in our Moroccan homestay.
Apparently, Friday is cous cous day. What a great day.
After Morocco, we went to Barcelona. Tragically, no pictures will be posted in this section of this massive update because my camera and wallet were stolen at a club. HUGE bummer, but I managed to stay pretty calm about it. My friends were very supportive and Nancy gave me a number to call where I could fill out a police report in English, which was good because, as comfortable as I have gotten with my Spanish, the thought of filing a police report in my second language stressed me out a bit. Other than that minor snare, Barcelona was great. We accomplished a lot of touristy goals: we saw Gaudí's La Sagrada Familia and his amazing park Güel, visited the Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona (CCCB) (awesome and very interesting), the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) (awful and super weird) and the Picasso Museum. It is so cool seeing things like La Sagrada Familia and Picasso's work, which I studied in my History of Art and Architecture class last year, in real life! I can't wait to take more in-depth Art History courses in college. We also took a tour of FC Barcelona's stadium. There are no words that could possibly capture how swank this stadium is! There is also an FC Barcelona Museum attached to the stadium, which chronicles the history of both the team and sport. Visiting this Museum and having attended an FC Sevilla vs. Moscow match two weeks earlier turned me into a futbolista -- a huge soccer fan! I have even started learning the Sevilla song by listening to it on YouTube.
OK, I can't continue writing right now, and I am only halfway through describing the Rides of March. Cádiz, Semana Santa, and Amsterdam will be described in another post shortly, because if I don't post this update right now, it will enter the black hole of things that I put off until they are irrelevant.
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